So Texas Instruments buys National Semi, who knew?

After a one week hiatus I am back with another observation through my 3D prism. One thing that is getting some press, besides the NSM takeover, is the lack of participation of Technology Stocks in our little rally. While there is plenty of bad news (Libya, Oil, Japan, etc.) and good news (corporate profits, reduced Federal spending…well maybe) which has been extreme over the last three years I find the end of the old school Technology stock interesting.

Drumming up trading ideas for TheStreet.com’s Options Profits has been good for keeping my nose to the market grindstone. One of the best things about AlphaVision is mixing and matching scale and time. Also, I like quoting in Implied Volatility as it gives a better sense of what is going on in the options for a particular name. For instance, in the Aqumin Landscape (www.aqumin.com) below the height of each building is the last One Month Price Change. The Sectors on the right are up the most on average over the last month and the Sectors on the left are up the least (note Tech as a Sector is dead last). The Funds Sector (for ETF’S) is right in the middle. Now let’s look at color and there is a sea of red. That means the 30 Day Implied Volatility is down for the last week in most of the market and in almost every ETF that trades over 200 contracts per day (the Funds Sector in the foreground). My eye was drawn to check out the ETF’s because there simply was almost nothing with increasing 30 Day Implied Volatility over the last week.

What are the two ETF’s with positive implied volatility changes right in front? #1 is the ProShares UltraShort Yen (YCS) at 2.6 and #2 is the Semiconductor HLDRS (SMH) at .88. The YCS is a different story for me right now and a further volatility investigation might be worthwhile. But the SMH looks interesting as it is down 4.2% for the month and the implied volatility has held up in the overall crush. The 30 Day Implied Volatility in the SMH actually has popped a bit off of the near term bottom. Maybe there are some other larger bottom fishers out there buying options who think that at least part of the Technology Sector is at a spot to dip a toe in. Texas Instruments already did.

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